Today I was chatting with my fellow wholesale company owner, Jay, from New Jersey, about how people constantly ask us for “Spreadsheet Databases” with our full inventory “for easy listing on Amazon”... we were debating if the seller understands how bad of an idea this is.

I would not be exaggerating to say we receive no less than 30 of these requests per day. So, today I am going to explain to you why uploading spreadsheets is a TERRIBLE IDEA FOR YOU, the seller.

HOW THE LIE SPREADS

I’m sure you have seen all the YouTube commercials where there’s a guy driving around in his Ferrari telling you how you can “Learn the secrets to easily making A MILLION DOLLARS online through Amazon”, the only catch is that you have to pay him $19.99 to find out the secret. 

Then, when the secret arrives in your inbox you discover that it is to upload these magical “databases” / “spreadsheets” to your Amazon account, then casually kick your feet up and wait for the money to flood into your bank account. Aah, what a wonderful life!! Well… no. I hate to burst your bubble. I hate to rain on the rented-Ferrari-guys $19.99 parade. I hate to be “Debbie Downer” but I am obligated to share nothing but the truth with our readers, so here we go.

HOW SPREADSHEETS WORK

If you’re not familiar with “Spreadsheet Databases” let me explain quickly what it is:

Pretty much every website can export their listings into an Excel file. Like this:

In theory, this means that anyone with this Excel file (AKA Spreadsheet / Database) could upload it to their website and these listings would then appear on their site. So, in theory, an Amazon seller (let’s call him Pete) could upload our spreadsheet and our 9,500 items would appear as their listings...in theory.

Then, in theory, when an Amazon shopper (lets call her Jane) sees one of these listings on Petes Amazon account, Jane would make a purchase.

Then, in theory, the Pete would then order this item from BigBrandWholesale.com and have BigBrandWholesale.com ship the item directly to Jane. And finally, in theory, Jane would get the item and leave Pete good feedback because she has no idea it actually came from BigBrandWholesale.com. This means Pete never actually OWNED the inventory Jane bought. This means BigBrandWholesale.com “dropshipped” the order to Jane. This is also called “BlindShipped” or “Blind Shipping”. At the end of the day Jane still gets the item she bought and is happy, Pete makes a small profit with no investment and BigBrandWholesale.com sells an item... in theory. 

BUT….

3 HUGE PROBLEMS WITH UPLOADING OTHER SELLERS DATABASES

There are 3 major problems with “spreadsheets”, let’s examine each issue:

HUGE PROBLEM #1: There is no way to control inventory. Let me explain: If I give you a database today; this database includes every listing on BigBrandWholesale.com at the literal moment that I downloaded the inventory database for you. You then upload it to Amazon (or your website or eBay or whatever), then you put on your Snuggie and pour a nice glass of Merlot and enjoy binging the full series of Ill Be Gone in the Dark on HBO right before you go to sleep.

The next morning you wake up and check your phone; you are sooooooo excited to see that you sold TWENTY TWO items last night! WOO HOO! Now comes the time for you to do work; you now have to order these items from our site so we can “dropship” to your Amazon buyer. You, still wearing the Snuggie, rush to your computer and quickly type BigBrandWholesale.com into Google. The screen reloads and here you are…. You rush to the Womens Wholesale Clothing section to find Lot #18555Q… but…. Where is it??? …it was just here 7 hours ago.... It must be here…. It’s gotta be here...right? Maybe it’s on page 2? Maybe page 3?...

You begin to panic so you contact us and ask, “Can you please help me find Lot #18555Q? Thanks!”

Then we reply, “I’m sorry, this Lot has sold. Have a great day!”

Your panic turns into total dread. You now have to refund your buyer and tell them it’s not in stock.

The buyer is absolutely pissed.

Next you try to fill the second order you received, just to discover that, it too has sold.

You spend your day refunding, apologizing, getting terrible feedback and searching for listings on the dropshippers website.

Does this even remotely seem like a successful way to conduct business to you?  When Jay and I were chatting, he told me a story about how one of his customers, without him knowing, uploaded his entire spreadsheet of handbags to her website.  A month passes and she contacts him, complaining that she got a bunch of bad feedbacks because the handbags were on in-stock on his site for her to buy for her customers. ...Like I said, NO WAY TO CONTROL INVENTORY. 

HUGE PROBLEM #2: The second reason Spreadsheet Databases are a terrible idea is that you have 0 control over anything. The only thing YOU can do is take the buyers money then place the order on the sellers website. You don’t know:

• WHEN they will ship
• IF they will ship
• WHAT they will ship
• WHO they will ship through (carrier, method / transit time)
• HOW they will ship (packaging materials, exterior packaging, etc)

Do you see how this is problematic? We ship a TON (like, literal tons) of merchandise a month and we get non stop inquiries; customers can’t find their tracking number, USPS hasn’t scanned it in 24 hours, parcel is delayed in Indiana… you name it, we hear it. Thankfully, we stock 100% of the merchandise we sell, so when a customer has a question we can dive right into the entire transaction, the shipping information and everything else associate with the purchase. This is exactly why our customer service is top rated. Imagine if you knew absolutely NOTHING...imagine if the only thing you can do to help YOUR buyer is tell them “I’ll check into it”, then you have to contact the actual seller and wait on them to provide you with details for you to relay to the buyer… time passes, the buyer gets more and more upset.  You are praying that the information you have received from the actual seller is accurate. Now you are labeled "Terrible customer service!". More bad feedback.

HUGE PROBLEM #3: Chargeback NIGHTMARE. So, if a buyer ordered from YOU and you ordered from someone else and they give you a tracking number, but a week passes and the tracking number still doesn’t activate, so the buyer is demanding YOU provide answers, but YOU can’t get ahold of the company that was *supposed* to ship the item to the buyer, you are now DOUBLE SCREWED.

Not only have you already paid the company for the order, but you now also have to refund the buyer. So lets pretend the item you sold was a $20 shirt. The buyer paid you $20. You then ordered the shirt from the dropshipper for $15.

This means you made $5 for basically nothing. Hooray!

But the dropshippers tracking number doesn’t work.

Your buyer demands a refund.

You then refund the buyer the $20 they paid.

But the dropshipper still has the $15 you paid them.

You are currently out $35 + a lot of time + frustration!

Of course you can now spend time trying to get your money back from the dropshipper. At best you end up with nothing but wasted time. At worst you end up with bad feedback and $15 of debt in addition to wasted time and a massive migraine.

BUT, If you absolutely insist on uploading inventory you do not own, via a spreadsheet, be sure to keep reading: Tips for Uploading Spreadsheet Databases of Inventory to your Amazon, eBay or Site